The Murder of Rasputin
Thu basement room of Prince Youssoupoll's lonely house on
the Moika was the setting for one of the most horrible and clumsy murders in history. Youssoupoff had prevailed upon Rasputin to visit him at his home under the pretext of meeting his wife, who as a matter of fact was at that time in the Crimea. Upstairs the conspirators waited, playing a gramophone, while Youssoupoff chatted to the priest and plied him with poisoned cakes. They were his favourite chocolate cakes and Rasputin ate them all greedily. Each one contained a layer of cyanide of potassium. To Youssoupoff's amazement—for in each cake there was enough poison to kill any ordinary man—Rasputin appeared to be entirely unaffected. Even after drinking several glasses of poisoned wine, he only complained of a slight irritation in the throat. After two hours of this nightmare rete-à-Mte, when Rasputin seemed dazed and quiet, Youssoupoff took the opportunity to consult with his con- federates as to what further steps should be taken to make an end of the terrible priest. It was decided that Youssoupoff should shoot him with a revolver. In order to distract Rasputin's attention, and to gain courage, his prospective murderer began examining a beautiful seventeenth-century
rock-crystal crucifix :—
" What are you doing over there so long ?' asked Rasputin; ' I love this cross ; it's a very beautiful thing,' I answered. _Yes, it's a nice thing. Cost a lot of money, I'm sure . . . How much did you pay for it ? ' He came towards me and, without Waiting for an answer, he continued : But this is what takes my fancy most.' And again he opened the labyrinth cupboard and began to examine it. Grigori Efunovich,. you had better look at the crucifix, and say a prayer before it.' Rasputin looked at me in amazement, and with a trace of fear.'I saw a new and unfamiliar expression in his eyes, a touch of gentleness and submission. He came right up to me, looking me full in the face, and he seemed to read in my glance something which he was not expecting. I realized that the supreme moment was at hand."
Youssoupoff fired, and Rasputin fell back with a bestial roar. The bullet appeared to have passed through a vital wt. The conspirators rushed downstairs, and they saw Rasputin lying dead. Four of them now arranged a ..e...ititious return of the priest to his fiat, while Youssoupoff and Purishkevich remained in the house where the murder had been committed. Presently Youssoupoff felt an instinct to go down to the basement and see that all was well with the corpse. Rasputin lay motionless. For some unknown and repellent reason, Youssoupoff seized the body and violently shook it. Suddenly, he tells us, " my attention was arrested by a slight trembling of his left eyelid. I bent down over him, and attentively examined his face. It began to twitch convulsively. The movements became more and more pro- nounced. Suddenly the left eye half opened. An instant later the right lid trembled and lifted, and both eyes—the eyes of Rasputin—fixed themselves upon me with an expres- sion of devilish hatred."
Neither poison nor bullet had killed Rasputin. Foaming at the mouth, with eyes crossed and protruding, he jumped to his feet, and seized his assailant in a vice-like grip. Terrified, Youssoupoff freed himself and rushed upstairs for help. Again Rasputin eluded his assassins (it is impossible not to admire his astonishing vitality) and after crawling up the staircase, " bellowing and snorting like a wounded animal," he vanished through a wicket gate into the courtyard. Purishkevich dashed out after him. Four shots were fired ; at the fourth, Rasputin fell heavily on to the snow-laden ground, this time not to rise again.
His body, mutilated and almost unrecognizable, was taken to an island close by, where the ice of the Neva was broken, and his corpse huddled into the hole.
Prince Youssoupoff's story is written with a simplicity fitting to its theme. There is something magnificent about Rasputin's death struggle—devil incarnate though he may have been—and in reading this first-hand account there are moments when the priest figures in one's thoughts as the hero, and the prince as the villain.
What is the truth about this horse-stealer, who rose to be the adviser and confidant of an Emperor and Empress ? What was it that those hypnotic eyes foresaw ? Was it a possibility of peace and prosperity for Russia, or were they merely windows of a soul possessed by the powers of evil
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